


where no water sprung, nor a drop of rain fell

by philthestone



Series: then she'll be a true love of mine [2]
Category: Outlander (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Family Fluff, and also babies, arm 2: 'loving jamie as a son', canon can die by my sword, claire and murtagh are like that arnold/carl weathers arm meme, happy holidays kids, where its like arm 1: 'loving jamie as a husband'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:53:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28159344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philthestone/pseuds/philthestone
Summary: Bree seems to have shifted herself awake in his arms. Even in her half-moment of wakefulness, she has slipped right into her usual chatterbox ways. Her words are garbled, and plugged up.“There’s four of ‘em Da.”“Four,” comes Jamie’s voice, like this is fascinating news.“Fourchik’ns.”He is lilting, almost sing-song, as he responds to her. It is as though the world is only he and Bree and the nonsense they are murmuring about, and there is an abstract part of Claire that thinks she could listen to him speak like this for the rest of her life, and be content.
Relationships: Claire Beauchamp & Murtagh Fraser, Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser, Jamie Fraser & small children
Series: then she'll be a true love of mine [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1762789
Comments: 25
Kudos: 90





	where no water sprung, nor a drop of rain fell

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this in 30 minutes to keep sane during finals week. claire and murtagh's relationship is very precious 2 me. for chronology this takes place shortly before "bedclothes" and "then she'll be a true love of mine"
> 
> reviews are love

Claire wakes because of her own stuffy nose. 

She hasn’t suffered a proper cold since her time at the Front, and the realization that she has been struck down by the sniffles _now_ is irritating. She is not above admitting that she prides herself on avoiding sickness. She is a _healer_ , after all. 

She is a healer with two tiny children who have sore throats worse than hers and cannot bear to be parted from the juncture of Mama’s neck when breathing through the nose becomes a difficult venture. Claire is vaguely aware of the presence of snot residue in places she did not previously believe existed.

Frequent hand-washing becomes somewhat difficult when one is on the road.

The sound of a boy’s quiet laughter focuses her flimsy awareness. Her eyelids are gritty and barely open, but she swallows painfully and shifts over the lumpy bedroll. It is dark out. She can’t remember when she fell asleep, only that her body has the bone-deep tiredness of _needing_ rest. Someone has covered her in a second blanket. The fire is low, but enough to cast a quiet, spidery glow over the surrounding trees. Claire can race their stretched trunks up into the blue-black heavens with her eyes. 

Sometimes, she can imagine that there is nothing wrong with living in the middle of the forest. There are green things, and heavy earth beneath their feet, and their love to keep them going.

It’s a silly notion. Even sillier when her children are sick, and she has no warm bed to put them in. 

_The children_. The boy is laughing again. Claire’s cheek rolls against the scratchy material pillowing her head, and she peers across the low fire, waiting for shapes to slowly come into focus. She feels momentarily suspended above ground before she spots him. Then, slowly, she is anchored in place.

The solid lines of her husband’s frame are silhouetted reliably between two trees. 

There’s something odd and lumpy about the shape of him, and she realizes that he is holding both kids: Bree is draped against one shoulder, little feet dangling with Jamie’s careful hand supporting her rump, and Willie is bundled into the crook of his other arm, so thoroughly swaddled that all Claire can make out is a mess of knit wool. 

Jamie’s rocking back and forth. It’s a small motion, just on the booted balls of his feet, and so practiced that she almost doesn’t catch it at first. He’s speaking, but not to the little ones; Fergus is perched against the foot of the second tree truck, neck craned upward to accommodate Jamie’s attempts at soothing. Fergus is just close enough to the fire that she can see the sweet lines of his face lit up in that good-natured laugh. The ends of his too-long curls are half hidden by the overlarge collar of Jamie’s spare coat, in which he’s been wrapped. Even with his recent growth spurt, it is far too big on him. His hands are hidden in the sleeves and the hem tucks nicely over his knobbly knees. 

The darkness and Claire’s tiredness make two of them look like an oil painting -- soft swipes of colour, yellows and oranges and browns. And fluid, only catching spots of feeling and emotion. They’re deep in murmured conversation, the sort that is cradled by the nighttime, and Claire thinks abstractly that were they at home, _in a home_ , it would be happening in a living room, by a fireplace. She can hear them but can’t quite parse what it is they’re saying. It’s lilting, in a way she guesses to be French. 

Jamie always switches to French when it is just he and Fergus alone. 

Bree shifts restlessly against Jamie’s neck, and Claire feels her own heavy limbs acutely as she tamps down the urge to get up and go to her. Bree’s been sleeping so badly -- scratchy-throated and flushed -- and they are almost out of sage to boil for tea. But her fidgeting doesn’t seem to interrupt. Every so often Jamie will turn to duck his head over hers, and Claire cannot hear what he says or truly see his face beyond the gentle slope of his nose behind Bree’s hair, but she can see the light catch the corners of his eyes, and there are laugh lines there.

 _Oh,_ thinks Claire’s heart.

He’s been so tense and irritable the last few days. Enough that Bree noticed yesterday, and became upset, hyper-sensitive as she was with her little runny nose. He’d held her until she quieted, then gone to find some food for supper and returned with scrapes on his knuckles that suggested a lost fight with a tree trunk. Claire had refused to acknowledge them in some kind of petty statement of her own. 

But the cold bite of the night air, strung with woodsmoke, means winter is indelibly coming again. She knows it eats at him, that he cannot keep them sheltered as he needs to. Jamie is a person born and built to care for others. They have not stayed in a town or proper building since Willie was born. Last week they had spoken briefly of heading South, towards Edinburgh. But they don’t have forged papers, or pass through ports, and just the _idea_ of exposing themselves to such a large city --

She stares at those laugh lines, and the sight of him so carefully holding their children that she might get some much-needed sleep, and feels the weight of the second blanket heavy overtop of her. She remembers, suddenly, the way it felt, knowing that one and only time that he would never hold their baby.

She is crying silently against her dirty bedroll before she registers the tightness in her own throat.

“Claire? Wheesht, lass, what’s wrong?”

Claire starts; she had not registered Murtagh’s presence by the fire beside her. She notices first his sleep-gravelled voice; then his wide-eyed, whiskery concern; then the absence of a proper blanket covering his sloped shoulders.

He’s whispering, which makes Claire think he understands more than he is letting on.

“I --” She does not know what to say. She is not even so ill that her faculties could be loosened, or affected. The night air is cool against her sore throat. 

Murtagh’s tired eyes are shrewd even in the cover of darkness. They narrow, then flick away from hers, and follow her line of sight to the cozy silhouette of Jamie and the children between the two Scots pines.

Bree seems to have shifted herself awake in his arms. Even in her half-moment of wakefulness, she has slipped right into her usual chatterbox ways. Her words are garbled, and plugged up.

“There’s four of ‘em Da.”

“Four,” comes Jamie’s voice, like this is fascinating news. 

“Four _chik’ns_.”

He sounds lilting, almost sing-song, as he responds to her. It is as though the world is only he and Bree and the nonsense they are murmuring about, and there is an abstract part of Claire that thinks she could listen to him speak like this for the rest of her life, and be content. Dimly, she hears Fergus’s sweet laugh again.

“Where’d ye find these chickens?”

“At Lall’broch. Maggie’s _clucky_.”

“Oh. That’s verra important then.”

“An’ Ms. Ginty.”

“Mistress Ginty? What a bonny name.” 

“Bonny bun,” says Bree. Her little voice is almost lost in the biggness of the forest and its nighttime ambiance.

“A bonny name for a bonny lassie,” Jamie says.

“Mu huh.”

The firelight frames them.

“I am,” Claire says, in careful, trembling whisper, “only grateful.”

She wonders at how much she is actually capable of communicating right now. Murtagh does not say anything for a moment, and she turns to face him, finally, careful enough that her movement won’t alert the other side of their glade. She finds him watching Jamie as carefully as she had been. When Murtagh looks at her, there is a quiet glimmer to his eye, and a tenderness to his scruffy mouth. It reminds her of how people must feel when they share food without a second thought. That lived in sort of knowing. She can smell the woodsmoke surrounding them and clinging to their clothes, and she thinks abstractly that she never knew she would come to understand him so well, this terse-browed, surly man.

“Aye,” he says, in a whisper far more solid than hers. “I ken. Go back tae restin’, _a leannan_.”

“Alright,” Claire says. She will make sure to check on Jamie’s bruised knuckles tomorrow, she thinks, just before her still-wet lashes droop shut.


End file.
